Saturday, March 31, 2007

Britain: Must not Use Black Accents on TV

"Cadbury Trebor Bassett has been forced to axe the 10 milion pound TV campaign for Trident, its biggest product launch of the year, following hundreds of complaints that the ad was racist and showed "harmful stereotypes"....

One ad showed a black man speaking in rhyme with a strong Caribbean accent and other executions show white people speaking in rhyme in Caribbean accents.

Viewers complained that the exaggerated behaviour and strong accents were a humiliating and negative depiction of black or Caribbean people.

They are still taking aim at popular politically incorrect broadcasters but are sticking to reporting (selected) facts rather than calling for censorship of any sort. They are now (Gasp!) leaving it up to their readers to decide what if any action needs to be taken about what they reveal. Or so it seems from their recent old-news "revelations" about popular and very incorrect sports announcer Sid Rosenberg. Rosenberg is clearly what Australians call a "stirrer" -- someone who is deliberately outrageous in order to stir up a reaction. Most Australians like stirrers.

Why shouldn't people say outrageous things anyway? It might be very helpful if more people knew what others thought of them.

Friday, March 30, 2007

"Racist" Sex-Prosecution in SC?

We read:

"The arrest of two women teachers on charges of having sex with their male students has brought cries of lingering racism in one of South Carolina's most conservative counties and evoked some of the South's oldest and deepest-seated racial taboos. Both women are white. The boys, six in all, are black.

Some of the blacks who make up more than a quarter of Laurens County's 70,000 residents are upset over the handling of the two cases, particularly the release of the teachers on bail.

They say the cases reflect the way crimes by whites against blacks in the segregated South were treated less seriously than other offenses, and blacks who leveled accusations against whites were less likely to be believed. "If this had been black teachers, they would not be out of jail right now," said Corinnie Young, a 49-year-old bookstore employee who is black....

Jerry Peace, the county prosecutor and a white man, said that the teachers are wearing electronic tracking devices and that their release on bail, $125,000 for one, $110,000 for the other, was based not on race, but on the danger to the community and the likelihood that the defendants might flee.

In any case, it would be unusual for someone accused of such a crime to be held without bail. Deborah Ahrens, a visiting professor of criminal law at the University of South Carolina, said of the bail amounts for the two teachers: "For the clients that I've represented in the past that were up for similar offenses, that sounds about right."

That the teachers should be presumed innocent until proven guilty is apparently not accepted by the protesting blacks. Why? Is that itself racist? One might have thought that the white teachers would be praised for their apparent lack of racial discrimination, though.

For another one of these absurd prosecutions, but one involving whites only, see here.

The Leftist "Media Matters" is trying to get newspapers to stop carrying columns by Ann Coulter. They are urging their members to ask their local newspaper why they carry her columns. And that is fair enough. Anybody and everybody is free to criticize their local newspaper. More people should do so.

But "Media Matters" are denying that they are doing exactly what they are doing:

"Media Matters does not contest, nor do we seek to eliminate, Ann Coulter's right to write and say what she believes. Nor do we contest or seek to eliminate the rights of news organizations to promote her views by running her columns or hosting her on television. We simply urge them to reconsider whether their decision to do so serves their readers and viewers.

So if the local paper said: "Yes. We have reconsidered and we think her columns are great" that would be all that "Media Matters" wants? Not very likely! They are running a campaign to prevent her from being heard and just denying that they are does not reverse that reality. But sailing under false colors comes as second nature to Leftists, of course.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Black teachers "overworked"

You can't win. If you ignore black/white differences you are "insensitive". And if you do your best to acknowledge black/white differences you can get it wrong too:

"In 2005, a group of black teachers complained to administrators in the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district that they were being treated in unfair and insensitive ways. Among other problems, they said they were being asked to "over-represent" their race, administrators said. Other teachers would come to them for help in working with black students....

Black teachers have stressed that it wasn't racism they were dealing with but a lack of cultural sensitivity that became a problem as more black teachers were hired, school officials said. "For example, if you're an African-American teacher, a (nonblack) teacher may come to you for advice about an African-American student's problem," said school human resource specialist Katherine Taylor. "But you can't always be a representative of your race. As teachers, we need to see students as students (rather than races)."

So now they are apparently doing "diversity workshops". I guess that might overwork the black teachers too.

I strongly agree that we should see students just as students but how do you reconcile that with showing special consideration for black/white differences? You can't have it both ways -- unless you are a black or a Leftist, of course.

As with the Oliphant story below, any action taken by an employer to deal with an un-co-operative black is "racist" -- this time in Toledo. Democrat Mayor Carty Finkbeiner fired Perlean Griffin because she refused a new job assignment -- whereupon she accused him of racism:

"A long-time city employee, Ms. Griffin was terminated Tuesday after she refused to support the mayor's restructuring of the affirmative action-contract compliance office.

The mayor's plan to eliminate an $11.9 million budget deficit calls for affirmative action to move under the department of human resources and contract compliance to fold into the finance department....

Later, Mr. Finkbeiner denied to reporters during his news conference in the mayor's conference room on the 22nd floor that he was racist, and insisted the fallout over the last week was caused by a "personality conflict" between Ms. Griffin and Theresa Gabriel, the director of human resources.

"Ms. Griffin told me that directly," he said. "I told her she would be able to run an independent operation, as she has been doing. She refused to go to work at human resources, and that was her call."

"The simple truth of the whole issue has nothing to do with anything other than Ms. Griffin's lack of willingness to work in the human resource department because of a personality conflict," Mr. Finkbeiner said.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

A Profitable Race Card

We read:

"Bill Oliphant thinks he's been suspended from officiating basketball and baseball games because he's black. The local boards that represent both sports say that's not true, and they're outraged over Oliphant's accusations....

Both organizations claim Oliphant hasn't followed their procedures or regulations regarding meeting attendance or certification, but he said they are using this as a cover to deny him assignments....

Two of the approximately 43 referees who officiate varsity boys' and girls' basketball games in Orange County are black: Otis Cowart and T.C. Wilmer, a female. "I'm not aware of any discrimination," Cowart said. "I know Bill is unhappy, he has a dilemma, but I don't think it's about discrimination or racism. There have been no problems for me."....

This isn't the first time Oliphant has taken a case to U.S. District Court. He and Sussman settled with the Central Hudson Valley Board of Girls Softball Officials last year for $20,000, according to sources familiar with the case. The case centered around Oliphant missing a mandatory meeting and not paying a $25 fine. He and his lawyer maintained Oliphant attended a meeting in Rockland County and, again, said the incident was driven by discrimination.

Bobby Moran, secretary/treasurer of the organization from 2001-05, said he thinks the case hurt the group financially. Sources confirmed that the softball board's members paid $5,000 of the settlement, the other $15,000 coming from an insurance policy with the state association. The board had to pay another $5,800 in legal fees. Dues have gone up this year from $50 to $65 and several sources say softball umpires are turning down assignments with Oliphant.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why," said Moran, also a basketball official. "It's unfortunate the way this has all gone down. But nobody wants to step up and say anything because they are afraid they will get sued."

Several officials interviewed echoed Moran's sentiments and said that Oliphant is arrogant, often unprofessional and chronically late to meetings and games. Documents obtained by the Times Herald-Record confirmed that in 2004 two softball umpires - Moran and Steve Aurigemma - asked not to work with Oliphant....

"Following the controversy surrounding nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh's derogatory song parody, "Barack, the Magic Negro," 630 KHOW-AM radio co-host Dan Caplis defended Limbaugh against charges of racism. Stating that although the song about Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois U.S. Sen. Barack Obama was "offensive," Caplis said that calling Limbaugh a bigot "is going too far." In his defense of Limbaugh, however, Caplis ignored Limbaugh's well-documented history of racially insensitive remarks.

Statements about Groups are Different from Statements about Individuals

If I make the statement: "Men are taller than women", most people will correctly interpret what I said as implying that men are ON AVERAGE taller than women. But there will always be some lamebrain, usually a Leftist of some kind, who will say something like: "But look at Andrea. She is taller than most men here". The lamebrain will think that he has made a devastating refutation of the initial statement by saying that. All he has shown, of course, is that he cannot tell the difference between statements about groups and statements about individuals.

A statement about the tallness of an individual is tested by measuring that individual. A statement about the tallness of a group is tested by measuring all people in the group or a representative sample of them. The two statements are OPERATIONALLY different. They say different things so they are tested differently.

So the statement that "blacks are very crime prone" implies NOTHING about any individual black. Blacks ARE very crime prone but there are still many blacks who are law-abiding.

I would hope that everybody was familiar with that bit of elementary logic but discourse about groups has got to the point where Leftists in particular tend to claim that statements about a group refer to ALL members of that group. And there is no doubt that the statement "ALL blacks are criminal" would be both racist and incorrect. In contrast, the statement: "blacks have a very high rate of criminality" is both correct and may not be in any way racist. Facts are not racist. Leftists, however, DO tend to assert that such statements are racist. But when were Leftists ever concerned about logic? Not very often. Their aim is usually to sound good rather than to be logical.

Sorry if all that seems elementary but the elementary does often seem to need spelling out.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Mysterious Criticisms "Racist"

About a month ago, a Law professor at University of Wisconsin/Madison, Leonard Kaplan, said in class certain things about the Hmong ethnic minority in Wisconsin. The Hmong are a people from Vietnam who live a primitive lifestyle but who opposed the Communists in the Vietnam war. To escape persecution by the Communists, many were given refuge in the USA -- where they have shown their gratitude by becoming a highly criminal group.

Kaplan was initially reported by someone who was not at the lecture of making some sweeping and derogatory statments about the Hmong. For a Jewish law professor to make sweeping and derogatory statemnents about another racial group does of course greatly strain credibility and the accusations were subsequently withdrawn. But around a month has now gone by and no-one so far seems willing to summarize what he did say. One has to suspect that he simply mentioned some undeniable truths. But whatever he said is still "racism"!

"The Boise State University College Republicans hosted a lecture by former Canyon County Commissioner Robert Vasquez last night in the Student Union Building. Fliers posted around campus promoting his speech, titled “America’s Illegal Alien Invasion,” have sparked protests. The student newspaper reports:

"The flier, a copy of which is also posted on the College Republicans Website, invites everyone to 'Celebrate Cesar Chavez Week' by coming to Vasquez’s speech, where a drawing will be held in which participants can win a free dinner by climbing through a hole in a fence. 'Climb through the hole in the fence and enter your false ID documents into the food stamp drawing!' the flier states."

Representatives from 18 student and community groups gathered outside the Boise State Student Union Building to protest the language on the flier. Several speakers said the language on the flier was “offensive,” “racist,” “malicious,” “undignified,” “hateful,” and “dangerous.”

Alicia Clements, a member of Idaho Community Action Network, told the Idaho Press while the flier distressed her, she was even more disappointed when she read that the flier said their comments were all in fun. “Who would find this funny?” Clements asked. “Racism and prejudice is an extremely painful experience,” she said, speaking from her own life experience. “This must be challenged. It is dangerous and could ultimately ruin our society,” Clements added.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Attack on Free Speech in Chicago School

"Two suburban Chicago students filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming their high school violated one of the students' civil rights by not letting her wear an anti-gay T-shirt. Heidi Zamecnik, 17, of Naperville, and Alexander Nuxoll, 14, of Bollingbrook, are students at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville.

In response to a National Day of Silence event in April 2006, Zamecnik wore a shirt to school that read "MY DAY OF SILENCE, STRAIGHT ALLIANCE" on the front and "BE HAPPY, NOT GAY" on the back, according to the suit filed Wednesday.

On the Day of Silence, students can refrain from speaking as an effort to highlight discrimination against homosexuals. According to the suit, one school administrator ordered Zamecnik to remove the T-shirt and another official ordered her to cross out "NOT GAY" with a marker.

"The American Airlines club at Miami International Airport is blocking the websites above [Michelle Malkin, Powerline, Charles Johnson, Hugh Hewitt], after its filtering program, Content Watch, convicted them of the captioned crimes. They are "jailbirds" now, and they are allowed no visitors — at least no internet visitors. (The case of Michelle Malkin is a bit more complex, since visitors are allowed, once they acknowledge that they are about to be exposed to her “Drugs/Alcohol” and her other “Illegal Activities.”)

It is most disturbing that mainstream Republican and conservative writers are being banned on the internet at public locations in the United States — and being smeared with accusations of drugs, violence, hate, pornography, and illegal activities. We did not do a comprehensive check of websites of a more liberal orientation, but we did note that Daily Kos was operating just fine.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

VERBAL Child abuse??

Some Florida nuttiness:

"A bill (HB 1169) that expands the legal definition of child abuse to include abuse that results in 'mental injury' was approved unanimously Wednesday by the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee. It has two more committee hearings before it can go before the full House for a vote.

A similar bill (SB 2736) is filed in the Senate.

Bill drafters aimed to answer legal concerns about the right to free speech with exemptions for constitutionally protected speech, such as political speech.

'We're going to make sure that no other child suffers mental child abuse and we don't get a conviction,' the bill's sponsor, Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, said before the committee vote.

"A US federal court has ruled that a 1998 law designed to block children from viewing internet pornography violates the US Constitution's free speech protections.

The ruling sided with a challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had argued that the provisions of the Child Online Protection Act were too restrictive.

Judge Lowell Reed of the US District Court in Philadelphia wrote in his ruling that while he sympathised with the goal of restricting minors from seeing pornography, other means that were less restrictive of free speech, such as commercial software filters, were available to block pornographic content.

The Child Online Protection Act made it a crime for any person to provide minors access to "harmful material" over the internet. Violators could be fined up to $50,000 and imprisoned for up to 6 months.

Some of my fellow STACLU-bloggers don't like this decision but, as a libertarian, I of course approve of it. One group of parents should not be able to force their preferences onto the rest of the country. Let them keep track of where their children are and let them learn how to work the "Off" switch.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Muslims lose one

We read:

"A Paris court today acquitted the editor of a satirical French weekly sued by two Muslim groups for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, in a case seen as a test for freedom of expression. Applause broke out in the courtroom at the announcement of the verdict, which ruled that three cartoons published by the weekly Charlie Hebdo in February 2006 were not insulting to Muslims.

The Paris Grand Mosque and the Union of Islamic Organisations of France took Philippe Val, the Charlie Hebdo editor, to court for reprinting cartoons that first appeared in a Danish newspaper, sparking angry protests by Muslims worldwide. They argued that the images drew an offensive link between Islam and terrorism and asked for 30,000 euros in damages.

Now that existing governor Blanco is bowing out, the Louisiana Democrats are trying to decide who will be their next candidate for governor. One of the Republican contenders is Bobby Jindal -- of Indian (from India) origin. Jindal does of course have the most politically admired skin-color in America (at least if you go by the media). That is the context for this:

U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon of Napoleonville said Democrats need a centrist, white candidate to beat Jindal

What a racist! If a Republican had said that, it would be blaring from the front page of every newspaper in America, but, as it is, you may see it only here.

P.S.I don't believe Melancon is a racist at all. He was just describing reality as he saw it. But Republicans are not allowed to do that. Any non-servile mention of race by a Republican is "racism".

Friday, March 23, 2007

The ACLU will Love this!

"Indiana's bright blue "In God We Trust" license plates may have just begun to hit the streets, but the plan behind them was born in last year's legislature. The law creating the plate was sponsored by Rep. Woody Burton, R-Greenville, a conservative member of the House who has supported a state constitutional ban on gay marriage and has spoken favorably of teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in public schools. As Bureau of Motor Vehicles officials pointed out, the bill also received wide bipartisan support in the House and Senate when it passed last year.

Patrons leaving the BMV office in Hobart, which has issued 2,867 of the new plates since January, were torn on whether they were making a religious statement, a patriotic statement or they just liked the flag-draped design better than Indiana's pale green on green field design. "I'm Catholic and I'm American so it represents the things I stand for," said Nick Bavanic of Crown Point.

It is also the only game in town for the driver who wants a new license plate this year, instead of a renewal sticker for the old plate. Indiana changes its license plates every five years.

"Liberals call it a "hate crimes prevention" bill, but conservatives denounce it as "anti-Christian" legislation. Whatever you call it, the bill is back -- reintroduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) on Tuesday. Liberals are pressing for passage, and conservatives are pressing President Bush to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

"If there was ever a bill which needed to be vetoed -- this is it," said Traditional Values Coalition Executive Director Andrea Lafferty. "Most Christians might as well rip the pages which condemn homosexuality right out of their Bibles because this bill will make it illegal to publicly express the dictates of their religious beliefs."

Lafferty and other conservatives argue that the bill will "elevate homosexuality" -- a type of behavior, they stipulate -- to the same level as race and other characteristics that can't be changed. "The fact is that Conyers' so-called hate crimes bill is a fraud, designed for only one purpose: to add homosexuals, cross-dressers, drag queens and transsexuals to the ranks of federally protected minority groups," TVC said.

Insofar as the bill targets speech, it would probably be unconstitutional but it is clear that any avoidance of homosexuals -- such as rejecting one as a carer or teacher or church-member or customer -- would become criminal. Comment from The ACLU. They don't go near the apparent fact that the bill will create new crimes. They pretend that it will just extend to the Feds prosecutorial powers already held by the States.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Victory for Free Expression at San Francisco State University

No Punishment for Stepping on Hamas, Hezbollah Flags:

"In a crucial victory for free expression, San Francisco State University (SFSU) announced yesterday that its College Republicans will face no punishment for hosting an anti-terrorism rally at which participants stepped on makeshift Hezbollah and Hamas flags. SFSU's decision comes after months of pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), national and local media, and the public-all of which called on the school to uphold the students' constitutionally guaranteed right to free expression.

"We are relieved that SFSU has come to its senses and recognized that it cannot punish students for constitutionally protected expression," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "But the fact remains that the university should never have investigated or tried them in the first place. This was a protected act of political protest and it is impossible to believe the university did not know that from the start."

SFSU's shameful attack on free expression began after an October 17, 2006 anti-terrorism rally at which several members of the College Republicans stepped on pieces of paper they had painted to resemble Hamas and Hezbollah flags.

Good to see that you cannot be legally compelled to say some particular thing on a private website:

"A US judge has thrown out a lawsuit challenging the fairness of how web search leader G*ogle calculates the popularity of websites in determining search results, court papers show.

In a ruling issued on Friday that came to light on Tuesday, Judge Jeremy Fogel of the US District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a lawsuit against G*ogle by parenting information site KinderStart.

The judge also imposed yet-to-be-determined sanctions on KinderStart legal counsel Gregory Yu for making unsupported allegations against G*ogle.

KinderStart sued G*ogle in March 2006 alleging the internet company had defamed the site by cutting it from its web search ranking system.... KinderStart, which features links to information about raising children, accused G*ogle of violations of antitrust, free speech, unfair competition and defamation and libel laws....

"KinderStart had failed to explain how G*ogle caused injury to it by a provably false statement ... as distinguished from an unfavorable opinion about KinderStart.com's importance," the judge's ruling states.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

AutoAdmit Untouchable?

There is an extraordinary site called AutoAdmit that has up every sort of abuse you can imagine. It refers for instance to "Kike sluts" (an abusive term for Jewish women).

It is a discussion board for law students, much used, apparently, by students at some Ivy League schools. According to the WSJ, the postings on it cannot be touched because of First Amendment protection, even though comments on it have apparently damaged the reputations of some female students.

How come Christian, conservative or anti-immigration speech is constantly censored by universities but real abuse cannot be? Very strange. Apparently anything nihilistic and destructive is fine but anything Christian or conservative has to be hounded out of existence.

Conservatives are a minority in the Bay Area (San Franscico) and the following radio promo for a book disturbed them:

"In his new bestseller, Chris Hedges challenges the Christian Right and its dark ideology. He challenges their religious legitimacy and makes a compelling case that these zealots have merely found a mask for fascism in patriotism and the pages of the Bible."

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

"Slanty eyes" Incorrect?

Leading Quebec politician Andre Boisclair is in trouble because he said that a lot of the students at Harvard had "les yeux brides" - slanting eyes. Apparently French-speakers had no problems with that expression but Anglophone Canadians have been huffing and puffing about it.

If you can describe someone by such a physical characteristic as their skin-color, why can you not describe them by their eye shape? It is after all their eye-shape rather than their skin color that differentiates Asians from Caucasians.

The Duke of Edinburgh once used the expression "slitty eyes" to refer to Asians and that produced a bit of tutt-tutting too.

"ORLANDO, FL: A bus driver was fired after a Muslim couple complained that he insulted members of their religion over the loudspeaker.

The driver, whose name was not released, was fired Thursday after Hilal Isler of upstate New York said she and her husband, Volkan Isler, were offended. The Turkish-American couple say he launched into a monologue after they boarded the I-Ride Trolley bus March 5.

Hilal Isler said he greeted passengers, told a blonde joke and then one about Muslims.

"And now they're telling us we're supposed to be nice to these Muslim terrorists who are trying to kill us all," Hilal Isler recalled him saying. "Here in America, we call them 'rag-heads' or 'towelheads,' but that's not right. What they wear on their heads is more like a sheet. We should be calling them sheetheads."

Monday, March 19, 2007

OK to Offend Southerners

To many Southerners the Confederate flag is a memorial to the brave men among their ancestors who fought to defend their hearths and homes against Northern tyranny. Even Abraham Lincoln in his famous Gettysburg address did not refer to the war as fought in the name of ending slavery. And one assumes that even Southerners can be allowed to have feelings. But their feelings don't count, apparently -- unless they are black or homosexual of course:

"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A Confederate flag hanging from a noose on a 13-foot gallows will remain on display despite protests from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who call it an affront to Southern heritage.

"The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag" by black artist John Sims is "offensive, objectionable and tasteless," Robert Hurst, commander of the local camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said Friday.

But the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science said it stands by Sims' work, part of a larger exhibit called "AfroProvocations," because it wants to inspire dialogue..."

"A history professor who has written controversially about Islam had an invitation to speak at George Mason University withdrawn, according to news reports, but the talk apparently will be rescheduled.

John D. Lewis, an assistant professor of history at Ashland University, in Ohio, had been scheduled to speak on February 28 on the topic "No Substitute for Victory: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism."

But some Muslim students protested, according to the Associated Press, and when the university discovered that the charter of the student group that was sponsoring Mr. Lewis's talk had lapsed, the invitation was rescinded....

The exact nature and source of the complaints against Mr. Lewis's scheduled appearance last month were unclear on Sunday.

A spokesman for George Mason told the AP that Mr. Lewis had not been barred from the campus. "We just don't want any disruptions to classes or anything like that," the spokesman, Daniel Walsch, said. "We're certainly not going to stand in the way of him coming here."

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Group's 'Hate-Free' meeting turns ugly

I love this one. It does tend to show who the haters are:

"A group devoted to social tolerance has been accused of being intolerant. The finger-pointing came after an altercation occurred at a meeting for the Fremont Alliance for a Hate-Free Community, where a discussion about hate crimes deteriorated into an ugly incident, witnesses said.

While trying to eject 71-year-old Barbara Marques from the monthly gathering Monday, the Rev. Garnet McClure grabbed and shook the chair in which Marques was sitting, attendee Sharon Giottonini said. McClure, a female pastor at Fremont Congregational Church, reacted after Marques said the 2002 slaying of transgender teen Gwen Araujo might not be a hate crime, several witnesses said. A scuffle ensued...

There is no covering up the religious identity of the Pilgrim Fathers of 1620 but that the prior (1607) Jamestown settlement was also Christian is being covered up:

"Tour guides at the American birthplace of Jamestown, Va., are being prevented from explaining Christian history and are under orders to refer to items such as the Ten Commandments and Lord's Prayer only as "religious" in nature.

That according to California pastor and researcher Todd DuBord who says he was stunned on a recent tour of the historic town when "our guide responded to our inquiry by saying that she was 'unable to speak about the plaques. We are only allowed to say they are religious plaques.'" ...

"While the tour guides at the Jamestown Settlement and Museum were cordial and informative on many points, we were all caught off guard by their unwillingness (yes, unwillingness) to discuss Jamestown's religious roots. As one of the tour guides was leading us through the very heart of the replica of the community, the Anglican Church, we asked if she could speak about the significance of the three religious plaques on the wall in the front of the church: the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles' Creed ... But his group was told the guides were only allowed to give a generic description as "religious."

So DuBord, who earlier documented similar efforts to edit Christianity from the historic references at the U.S. Supreme Court and Jefferson's Monticello estate, is now asking Jamestown officials to change its procedures, because at this point visitors get "absolutely no religious information from Jamestown guides about this first colony in America."

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Hate Speech from Hillary?

The Hildabeest recently said: "If anybody tells you there is no vast right-wing conspiracy, tell them that New Hampshire has proven it in court. We have the -- we have the facts, and we're going to make that a crime"

She was apparently referring to convictions of three Republican Party members in New Hampshire for phone jamming during the 2002 Federal election. But do minor criminal acts by three individual party members (none of whom were candidates for public elective office) constitute a "vast right-wing conspiracy"? She sure has a funny definition of "vast"!

Hannity has called what she said "hate speech" -- and stigmatizing a large group of people as the result of misdeeds by a few would seem to be just the sort of thing that IS normally called hate-speech. But only conservatives and Christians can be guilty of hate-speech, as we know.

And WHAT is it that she is going to make a crime? What the three GOPers did is already a proven crime so that cannot be it. Is any "conspiracy" among conservatives to be a crime? It seems so. But how do you define conspiracy? At law, any two people acting together can be a conspiracy. And the Hildabeest has pointed to actions by just three people as an example of what she means. So are all agreements by three or more conservatives to take any form of combined action to be outlawed? That sure sounds like heaven for Democrats! It seems that she was both uttering hate speech herself and proposing Draconian restrictions on free speech.

The Leftist Media Matters has the details and does its best to put an acceptable face on the incident. They don't go anywhere near that word "vast", though. I would have thought that "minor" would be the most accurate adjective.

They are a California company who print t-shirts and other items with slogans chosen by customers. Some of those customers say politically incorrect things. The firm DOES censor a lot of the things customers submit. They do not rely entirely on the First Amendment to protect what they produce. But they do not censor enough for some. Two comments below. One from a Frenchman who feels dissed at what they sell and another by an outspoken customer who thinks they are too wishy-washy.

Hubert, who had previously purchased a T-shirt from CafePress.com poking fun at the head-butting French soccer player Zinedine Zidane, was aware that company produced material offensive to the French. But he was concerned that the inclusion of French-bashing products in the company newsletter was either a tasteless oversight or a de facto endorsement.... A couple of e-mails and a voice mail to the company's publicity department produced some promising results - a link to the newsletter with the offending items deleted, and another link to a host of White Power items was blocked. But a host of offensive items remained, and an e-mail from a company representative implied that the company could not possibly review all of the designs needed to produce the estimated 45,000 new items that users submit every day.

And:

Ask John Moore and he'll tell you that the company's prohibited content guidelines are most definitely implemented. Moore, the owner of NastyBanners.com and designer of the "F*** Hezbollah Ragheads" tote bag, has been prohibited from selling certain items due to potential copyright infringement and objection over certain content. Once, said Moore, he tried to submit an image of Osama bin Laden on Hitler's body, but the design was deemed unacceptable. "I was trying to make a connection with Nazism and Islamofascism, because they're both the same," explained Moore. "But the liberals have forgotten this.... After being censored by CafePress.com, Moore doesn't mind doing business with the company. "They seem like nice people ... but they're liberals," said Moore. "They're just trying to cover their butts from a legal and economic standpoint."

It seems a pity to me that they do ANY censoring. I guess they don't want to spend money on a First Amendment court case. Given that they would probably encounter the 9th Circus at some stage, I don't suppose anyone can blame them. Quotes above from here

Friday, March 16, 2007

Definition of "Hate Speech" Widening?

Once upon a time, a negative comment of some kind had to be aimed at a minority group to be called "hate speech" but that is of course rather narrow. There are lots of people and things that get hated for all sorts of reasons. And the community may be adopting the wider meaning that has always been possible -- as we see in a recent dispute among an apparently all-black group:

A black local councillor in Milwaukee, Mike McGee, is being subjected to a recall election and he is not taking it kindly. He said on radio that one of his political opponents, Leon Todd, should be "hung" for betraying the community. He also gave out his opponent's phone no. on radio and urged listeners to call it.

Thuggish behavior, but is it not just a dispute between two individuals? Apparently not. Todd got a court order against the thug (no wonder he is being recalled!) and commented afterwards: "It's really a shame that we have reached this level. But when it comes to hate speech -- hate speech is not free speech, and we cross the line"

It seems that negative speech of all kinds is on the verge of being criminalized. And note also that the myth of hate speech not being free speech is invoked as if it were beyond question. That myth originates in nothing more than Leftist chants but it has gained an alarming amount of ground.

"Shouting angry slogans and toting protest placards, hundreds of New York University students came out to voice outrage over a game by the university's student Republican club that lampooned illegal immigration.

In the game, called Find the Illegal Immigrant, members of the Republican club scoured the campus to find a club member wearing an "Illegal Immigrant" sign. The finder was rewarded with a gift certificate at the college's bookstore....

Around 2 p.m., as the game ended, the protesters marched into Washington Square Park. Chanting "Black, Latino, Arab, Asian, white! No more, no more, this racist stuff! Defend our human rights!" they made their way to the fountain. As they ringed the fountain's edge, speakers in the middle commended them for sticking up for the people, as one of them put it, "who feed us, who clean up after us."

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Hate-speech against Australians?

With separate parliaments recently established in Scotland and Wales and a separate English parliament under discussion, Britain is the disunited kingdom. Part of the reason for that is that Brits look down on one-another at a great rate -- for reasons of social class and according to where they live -- both of which are usually indexed by accent. Anybody who lives North of Watford, for instance, is regarded as a semi-barbarian by most of those who live in the South-East. And to most of the English, the Scots are simply hilarious! And the Welsh are good only for singing, of course. G.B. Shaw (who was an Irishman) summed it up well with his famous saying that: "No Englishman can open his mouth without causing another Englishman to despise him".

Such unhappy people do, of course, also sometimes take it out on people from overseas and Australians are often recipients of some such animus. On the whole, however, Australians are much better accepted in Britain than are other Englishmen! I once had an upper-class girlfriend in London, for instance, who was quite ready to marry me but who would NEVER have married a Cockney (working-class Londoner)!

Most Australians, however, are unaware of that context. They do not realize how generally prejudiced the English tend to be about other groups and get more offended than they should be when some ignorant English twit mouths off about Australians. Australians fail to realize that the same English twit will despise other Englishmen even more. Hence the outraged reply in the Australian mainstream media to a recent example of such twittery. The twit concerned certainly did make some extraordinary and ill-founded generalizations. Excerpt:

the Land Down Under is not populated by the hearty, the gregarious and the welcoming, but by white trash (I don’t particularly like that phrase because no-one has the courage to use its equivalent, ‘black trash’, but you get the point). Australians are some of the most coarse, racist people on earth, as Kath & Kim rightly portrays. For example, an American girl who seeks courtship will tentatively ask you for a meal and weeks of getting to know you; an Australian girl will come up to you at the Walkabout bar in London’s densely Aussie-populated Shepherds Bush and inquire ‘Would you like a f*ck?’

What the author, Patrick West, failed to explain is that the English have always migrated to Australia in droves and that over a million British-born people live in Australia to this day (over 5% of the Australian population). That is called "voting with your feet". Migrating to another country is a big move. People don't do it unless the new country is a lot more attractive to them than the one they left. So the judgment of English people who know Australia well is very favourable. But I guess that the English too must be white trash and some of the most coarse, racist people on earth.

As Mr West observes, there are also many Australians (106,000) who have moved to Britain for work opportunities but they are nowhere nearly as many as those who have gone the other way.

It seems highly likely that Mr West's diatribe could fall foul of Britain's Draconian hate-speech laws. The publication in which the diatribe appeared is "Spiked" -- a generally libertarian British publication -- so I would regret it if "Spiked" went the way of its predecessor publication -- LM -- which had to close down as the result of a lawsuit. Given the British legal environment, I think that the editor would be wise to withdraw the article promptly and substitute an apology for it.

I imagine that someone will leap at the chance of accusing me of stifling free speech in what I have said above but a closer reading should reveal that I am trying to protect my fellow libertarians from their own folly.

Update:

Perhaps I should mention that I have written some rather scornful things about Britain. I have just re-read them and am rather pleased about how well they stand up -- even though they were written nearly 30 years ago.

Update 2:

There is a rejoinder to the West article here. And there is a contrasting British view of Australia here. The contrasting view is based on an actual visit to Australia -- unlike Mr West's puerile outpouring.

The Delta Zeta sorority at the intolerant anti-Christian and anti-Republican DePauw university in Indiana was not flourishing. The chapter's residence was known as the "Dog house"!

So the national leadership of the sorority decided on a shakeup and dismissed most of the members -- leaving only the attractive ones. The ousted ones were said to be all overweight, black, Korean or Vietnamese. At a guess, they might have been all Democrat supporters as well. The national organization does deny that attractiveness was the criterion, though. I guess politeness requires that.

The university says that the whole thing was very bad and has now dismissed the sorority from the campus. You have to have the RIGHT KIND of intolerance at DePauw. Apparently atheistic Democrat uglies are what is celebrated there.

Why cannot a sorority choose its members on any basis it likes? It is a private club. Will young men on the campus eventually be required to date equal numbers of attractive and unattractive women? I am sure that the social engineers of the Left would just love to enforce that if they thought that they could get away with it.

Given their own abysmal record of intolerance, I think DePauw should say: "To err is human" and invite the sorority back. They were originally a Methodist university so someone there might even remember the parable of the lost sheep.

"Land Rover has angered a Western Isles councillor after promoting a new colour called Stornoway Grey. Angus Nicolson claimed the colour will damage the town's image among tourists and leave people with the impression that it was drab and dull. The councillor has called on the car manufacturing giant to rename it Silvery Stornoway.

However, Land Rover said it was one of its strongest colours and that it will help "keep" Stornoway on the map.

Mr Nicolson said: "This is deeply insulting and is offensive, inaccurate and inherently degrading. "This will hit tourism as it subliminally implants adverse connotations in the minds of those who have never experienced the reality of these beautiful islands."

Stornoway is the port for the Outer Hebridean Island of Lewis and it WAS rather grey last time I was there. The picture above was probably taken on the one bright and sunny day of the year -- and it is cloudy, even so.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Shriek! Top general calls homosexuality 'immoral'

This is one to watch:

"Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday that he supports the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" ban on gays serving in the military because homosexual acts "are immoral," akin to a member of the armed forces conducting an adulterous affair with the spouse of another service member.

"The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday denied en banc rehearing of a Sept. 20 ruling that public libraries whose meeting rooms have been opened to private groups can prohibit use of the rooms for religious worship.

The denial drew a dissent from Judge Jay S. Bybee, joined by Judges Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, Andrew Kleinfeld, Richard Tallman, Consuelo Callahan, Carlos Bea and Milan Smith Jr. "The panel majority's decision permits the government to single out what it calls `mere religious worship' for exclusion from a forum that it has opened broadly for use by community and cultural groups," Bybee wrote. "In so doing, the majority has disregarded equal-access cases stretching back nearly three decades, turned a blind eye to blatant viewpoint discrimination, and endorsed disparate treatment of different religious groups."

The county makes its public library meeting rooms available to the public during library hours for "educational, cultural and community related meetings, programs and activities." The county prohibits use of the rooms for "religious services," although other forms of activity related to religion are permitted....

Faith Center applied for and was granted permission to use a meeting room at the branch library in Antioch. A flyer advertising the event divided the day's activities into a morning "Wordshop" and an afternoon "Praise and Worship" service with a sermon by Hopkins.

Toward the end of the afternoon service, library staff informed Faith Center representatives that they were not permitted to use the meeting room for religious services. The library subsequently rescinded its permission for Faith Center to use the room at a future date.

Faith Center sued to enjoin the county from excluding Faith Center's proposed religious meetings, asserting that the county's policy violated the First Amendment.

In granting the preliminary injunction, District Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California reasoned that religious worship is speech protected by the First Amendment, that religious worship cannot be distinguished from other forms of religious speech, and that he exclusion of religious worship from otherwise permissible speech of a religious nature constitutes viewpoint discrimination.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit panel reasoned that the meeting rooms are limited public forums-so that restrictions governing their access are permitted so long as they are viewpoint neutral and reasonable in light of the purpose served by the rooms-because of the nature of libraries and because the county requires prior permission for access to the meeting rooms, charges a fee, and excludes schools from using the rooms "for instructional purposes as a regular part of the curriculum" and organizations who wish to engage in "religious services."

So a district judge makes a reasonable decision in line with the First Amendment, the 9th Circus overturns him and now refuses to revisit the case. It looks like game, set and match for the 9th Circus to get overtuned by SCOTUS yet again. STACLU has some extended comments on the matter.

The raid by immigration officials on a factory in New Bedford, Massachusetts, has got a lot of attention (Plug: I have a few thoughts up about it up on my IMMIGRATION WATCH blog). Mainstream Leftists did not seem to be interested enough so some far Left groups staged a protest rally. But even Communists are not allowed to defame the Democratic party! A few fun excerpts:

"Chanting slogans in Spanish and English, some carrying bilingual signs, about two dozen demonstrators showed up outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office downtown on Monday. They were protesting last week's raid in which 361 alleged illegal immigrants were rounded up at a New Bedford factory that supplies backpacks and other gear for the military.

No mainstream immigration activist groups showed up for the 5 p.m rally and picket line. Most of the participants were Brown University students or members of small social justice or labor groups. Brian Chidester of the International Socialist Organization [Communists], one of the leaders of the demonstration, railed against what he called a military-style raid on the workers at Michael Bianco Inc. a week ago today.... "This was a total crime - terrorism on the part of the U.S. government is what you would have to call it." ....

Not all went smoothly, however, at least two speakers were shouted down and had the microphone wrested from them when their speeches deviated from the accepted line, criticizing the Democratic Party and illegal immigration.

Fred Bergen, representing a group called Working Class Emancipation, declared, "the only thing that can stop these attacks on immigrant workers is the power of the labor movement." But, he said, that power was "hijacked by people who wanted to turn this into a movement for the Democratic Party. The party that is against immigrant workers, the party that is for building a wall on the border, the party that is for more so-called enforcement. We need a party that represents the working class. "This is not going to come from Congress, it's not going to come from the Green Party or Ralph Nader who campaigned on a platform of anti-immigrant racism."

"Go away!" said Chidester, ripping the microphone from Bergen's hand, "if you are going to attack people, go away."

Paul Tarullo, executive director of US Citizens Rights, got only a few words into a speech against illegal immigration when people started calling him a "racist" and shouting "Get out of here. We don't need racists around here." He too lost the microphone, and as he was walking away, the protesters started chanting "Racist go home!"

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Of Hate-Speech and Hypocrisy

After Ann Coulter used the word "f*ggot" in a speech, there was a huge outcry from the Left and from many on the Right. Various people have pointed out, however, that Leftists can apparently use the term with impunity. There is a big list of examples here.

"The BBC has apologised to brain injury sufferers after Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson referred to crash victim Richard Hammond as "a mental".

Clarkson made the quip when presenter Hammond returned to the show last month. Hammond is still recovering from a 280mph car smash in September which left him fighting for his life. "Are you a mental?" Clarkson asked on the BBC2 programme.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Russian Christian students suspended for praying at a Washington school

We read:

"A dozen students attending Heritage High School in Vancouver, Wash., located on the state's southern border, were suspended on Friday for praying at school. Ten in the group were suspended for ten days while two received one-day, in-school suspensions for holding a morning prayer meeting. The group has now sought out legal assistance.

According to the group's statement, the affected students had met together a few weeks ago to initiate a school prayer club. They were refused by the school's vice principal, Alex Otoupal, who explained that they could not meet in a private room.

The individuals, who met for about two weeks before 7 a.m., decided to pray in the school cafeteria, instead, where an alleged Satanist student complained to the school office. The area was considered to be a well-trafficked area, and the prayer meeting supposedly would disrupt education

The prayer group was instructed by the vice principal to go and pray outside rather than in the cafeteria. The students persisted in praying in the lunch room, however, because of the inclement weather outside. As a result, they were suspended for ten days.

"Attention Fred Flintstone and the Geico cave guys: "Stone Age" is no longer acceptable, joining the list of other words and terms deemed offensive in polite society. "Primitive" also is considered, well, primitive by some.

"All anthropologists would agree that the negative use of the terms 'primitive' and 'Stone Age' to describe tribal peoples has serious implications for their welfare," the British-based Association of Social Anthropologists said Tuesday. "Governments and other social groups have long used these ideas as a pretext of depriving such peoples of land and their resources."

The edict is the result of a kerfuffle that began last March when Jenny Tonge, a Liberal Democrat member of Parliament, described two Botswana tribes as "trying to stay in the Stone Age" and "primitive" during a spirited debate. Though she later said she was misunderstood, Mrs. Tonge was criticized in the British press as "primitive" herself.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

A Censored Fashion Advertisement

Above is the European advertisement feminists did not want you to see. It seems to have originally been banned in Spain and has now been withdrawn everywhere. It is part of a promotion for the Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana. Apparently it portrays women in a "submissive" position and is therefore wicked.

Details here. Extended commentary here. I liked this quote from a feisty Spanish lady: "So the feminazis that indoctrinate us for our own good and that penalize what they so unfortunately describe as the "objectifying of women", are only rebroadcasting the idea that our bodies are shameful and shouldn't be shown off as we will."

" A ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that municipal employers have the right to censor the words "natural family," "marriage" and "family values" because that is hate speech and could scare workers....

However, as the Pro-Family Law Center noted, the court "completely failed to address the concerns of the appellants with respect to the fact that the City of Oakland's Gay-Straight Employees Alliance was openly allowed to attack the Bible in widespread city e-mails, to deride Christian values as antiquated, and to refer to Bible-believing Christians as hateful.

When the plaintiffs attempted to refute this blatant attack on people of faith, they were threatened with immediate termination by the City of Oakland. The Ninth Circuit did not feel that the threat of immediate termination had any effect on free speech."

"Some local Muslims are urging people to boycott advertisers of WBT's "Jeff Katz Show," saying the conservative radio talker insults their religion with "hate-filled" comments on the air.

At a Wednesday news conference, Jibril Hough of the Charlotte-based Islamic Political Party of America charged that Katz speaks mockingly about Muslims and showcases only critics of Islam on his 3-6 p.m. show at 1110 AM....

Katz, who is among the leading ratings performers in afternoon drive, rejected the group's characterization of his comments as bigoted. The Philadelphia native said he has merely expressed his frustration that too few Muslims have spoken out against terrorism.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Abuse is part and parcel of army training and army discipline. It has long been considered a part of toughening the soldiers up. And I speak as a former Sergeant in the Australian Army Psychology Corps so I do know a little about the matter. Someone who can't take abuse is not likely to be able to take the more serious stuff that field service could dish up any day

"A prominent politician was sacked in a racism row overnight after he said being called a "black b*stard" was part and parcel of Army life for ethnic minority soldiers.

Patrick Mercer, the shadow homeland security minister for Britain's Conservative Party and a former Army colonel, also said he knew "a lot" of ethnic minority servicemen in the Army who used perceived discrimination as an excuse for poor performance.

Mr Mercer, MP for Newark, told The Times that suffering racial abuse - as well as abuse about facial features, hair colour and weight - was common in the Army and to be expected.

"Airport workers caused consternation yesterday by cutting off the tail of the wrecked Garuda passenger jet lying in a twisted, melted mess at the end of Yogyakarta runway, and painting out its company logo and registration number.

The dawn cover-up followed a similar attempt at concealing the identity of a crashed Adam Air Boeing 737 just two weeks ago, after what was described as a "hard landing" at Surabaya airport, in east Java, Indonesia. All passengers escaped from that incident unharmed, but the jet broke in two.

Indonesian air safety officials - including Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa - are facing tough questions about whether the country is serious about improving its appalling record.

"Unpredictability, improvisation and casualness can be charming when you are travelling on a flexible schedule by boat or bus and train. But when it comes to aeroplanes, what you want most of all is for everything to be done by the book. In Indonesia, you sometimes get the impression that the book has been mislaid"

Update:

A reader writes:

"It is a very common practice to cover over any identifying marks on an aircraft that has been involved in an accident or incident. It is also done when an aircraft enters storage. The airlines do not want or need the bad press. It is more about avoiding bad publicity than a cover up. I have been working in aviation for over 24 years, and part of my duties included aircraft accident recoveries, damage evaluations and field repairs for a Fortune 500 company. Normally the first thing the airline does, or ask us to do is to cover up the aircraft markings. It is not a Muslim thing."

"A Turkish court has ordered access to YouTube's Web site blocked because of videos allegedly insulting the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Paul Doany, head of Turk Telekom, Turkey's largest telecommunications provider, said his company had immediately begun enforcing the ban.

The video prompting the ban allegedly said Ataturk and the Turkish people were homosexuals, news reports said. The CNN-Turk Web site featured a link allowing Turks to complain directly by e-mail to YouTube about the "insult."

Friday, March 09, 2007

French Coverup

We read:

"The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991. The officers' acquittal at the end on April 29, 1992 sparked riots in Los Angeles.

If Holliday were to film a similar scene of violence in France today, he could end up in prison as a result of the new law, said Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi....

The government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules. The journalists' organization Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns for a free press, has warned that such a system could lead to excessive self censorship as organizations worried about losing their certification suppress certain stories.

They've got a lot to hide over there -- a complete breakdown of control over their big Muslim population for a start. This latest measure looks like the first step towards re-establishing French Fascism. France did after all invent Fascism -- in the person of Napoleon Bonaparte. That's part of the reason why Marxists refer to Fascism as "Bonapartism". There has always been plenty of support for totalitarian ideologies in France. The French revolution just swapped one form of totalitarianism for another.

"Celtics radio analyst Cedric Maxwell apologized on the air last night for saying that a female referee should "go back to the kitchen" after he disagreed with one of her calls.

Maxwell made the comment during the Celtics' 77-72 victory over the Rockets on Monday. He subsequently said, "Go in there and make me some bacon and eggs, would you?" in reference to referee Violet Palmer.

I doubt that "back to the kitchen" implies female inferiority. I myself am greatly respectful of good cooks. I often drive for miles in pursuit of a good dinner.

But if we take it as given that the commentator was disrespecting women (and men and women OFTEN say disrespectful things about the opposite sex) then he should have said that he was a Muslim -- because female inferiority is part of Islamic doctrine and, as we know from experience, Islam is especially protected by the First Amendment. Christian utterances certainly are not -- as I noted on on 6th, for instance.

Anyway, what is wrong with men and women being good at different things? They always have been and always will be. And why must people not say so? Has reality been outlawed? Mentioning a lot of it certainly seems to have been.

"Fictional Kazakh TV reporter Borat has made an unexpected cameo appearance as a victim of censorship in a heavyweight annual human rights report issued by the US State Department.

The 2006 report, released in Washington by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, criticised the real Kazakhstan, a vast oil-producing Central Asian state, for increased restrictions on freedom of speech and other abuses.

The report cited Borat's loss of his Kazakh webpage http://www.borat.kz in late 2005 alongside court cases and limits on free speech faced by the few domestic media critical of Kazakhstan's long-serving President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Baron Cohen, who subsequently moved the site to http://www.borat.tv, has been something of a thorn in the side of Kazakhstan's government, which initially reacted angrily to his portrayal of the country as home to misogynists and racists.

Shortly before the Web site closure, a Kazakh Foreign Ministry official threatened "legal measures" against him. Cohen, who is Jewish, responded in character as Borat saying: "I ... fully support my government's position to sue this Jew."

Thursday, March 08, 2007

OK to Insult NASCAR Fans

The Leftist double standard is endless. You are not allowed to look crosseyed at a black or a homosexual but you can insult white NASCAR fans all you like, apparently.

Some Democrat lawmakers speaking in the legislature of Washington State recently described NASCAR fans as "toothless, white trash rednecks" and said of them "These people are not the kind of people you would want living next door to you. They'd be the ones with the junky cars in the front yard and would try to slip around the law."

Another high-powered intellectual in the State house -- the Speaker, in fact -- implied that NASCAR identity Richard Petty [above] looked like a drunken felon, saying "You mean the guy who got picked up for DUI?" In fact, Mr. Petty does not drink alcohol.

Details hereDid anybody notice any of that wicked prejudice or stereotyping there?

There is a video of the wonderfully "enlightened" comments here. Those guys sure know how to set an example for us all.

You can imagine the endless caterwauling in the press if a Republican had said something similar about (say) the NBA.

As we saw here on 6th., coming to a Mexican-themed party wearing a style of makeup favored by Mexican women produces immediate uproar and all sorts of accusations of prejudice etc. And nobody had to say a word for those accusations to fly.

So what happens when a Jewish man in a big hat not only has racial abuse hurled at him but he gets physically assaulted and his property stolen?

It happened last October in Australia. And the police have only just now got around to laying any charges against anyone. And that despite the fact that a policeman was driving the bus on which the thugs were travelling and that there were heaps of witnesses. Even then it seems clear that the police would not have been prodded into action except for pursuit of the matter by Australia's Murdoch press (Yes. The same Murdoch who set up Fox News).

Details here. At least orthodox Jews so far feel free to wear their hats and caps in public in Australia -- unlike France. It should be noted that it was intervention by outraged Australian bystanders that enabled Mr Vorchheimer's attackers to be caught. The police (as usual) were no help.

"The Supreme Court in an order today gave the nation great news for student free speech rights by vacating the widely-criticized decision of the Ninth Circuit in Harper v. Poway Unified School District. The Ninth Circuit had denied a preliminary injunction to a high school student, Chase Harper, whom the Poway School District punished for wearing a homemade T-shirt at school that read, "Homosexuality is shameful," because it was offensive to observers who practice or support homosexual conduct. Today's Supreme Court's order vacates one of the worst decisions ever against freedom of speech for students.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

"A compromise announced today will permanently return a brass cross to the chapel at the College of William and Mary in a prominent display rather than its previous altar post.

The compromise was offered as a recommendation by a panel comprising alumni, students and others formed by President Gene Nichol [above] in response to outcry created by his decision to remove the cross.....

Some College of William and Mary alumni began holding back donations until it was permanently restored.

A pity, though, that it took money to do what the courts and the First Amendment could not. If I were a Christian who went into that chapel for prayer and mediation, I would think that my freedom to exercise my religion was GREATLY interfered with by the removal of the cross.

"Israelis have chosen a song ridiculing Islamic terrorists as their representative entry for the Eurovision song contest - and the Eurovision organizers say they may ban the song and its "inappropriate political message."

The song, called "Push the Button," was composed by the popular Israeli rock group Teapacks (Tipex), whose members say that they are proud of using the international platform to convey an important message to the world on behalf of the Jewish state. In English, Hebrew and French, the artists humorously dismiss the global Jihad and murderous Iranian nuclear intentions in a fusion of rap, rock and folk music....

Teapacks members and their families experience the brunt of Islamic terrorism first-hand. The band was formed in 1988 in the Kassam rocket-pocked city of Sderot.

Eurovision's organizers have already begun to consider banning Teapacks from the competition".

"U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Farnan dismissed a suit filed last May in Delaware by would-be advertiser Christopher Langdon, who claimed G*ogle, Yahoo! and Microsoft infringed upon his rights to free speech by refusing to publish his ads. The ads in question promoted Langdon's Web sites, which criticize some North Carolina politicians and the Chinese government.

"Search engines have a First Amendment right to reject ads as part of their protected right to speak or not," Farnan wrote... the court ruling gives G*ogle free reign to refuse an ad for any reason.... G*ogle is not the public square, it is a media company."

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

College ready to Disregard Free-speech Protections for Christian preaching

Very wicked to criticize use of the word "gay". I must check whether homosexuals remain gay when they get AIDS

We read:

"Open Air Outreach ministries was back in action in the "free-speech zone" of the Texas Tech campus Friday. Jesse Morrell, an evangelist with the ministry, said his purpose at Tech is to tell students what the Bible teaches. Some students said they felt he was preaching hate.

"Homosexuals hijacked the word 'gay,' they hijacked the rainbow," Morrell said. "I think 'gay' is an offensive word to God. I'll call them sodomites or queers, I even prefer the word 'homo' over the word 'gay' - at least it's not as offensive as 'gay.'" ...

Court records of the Supreme Court's decision in Cohen v. California state speech that is merely offensive is protected under the First Amendment.

Micheal Gunn, assistant director of Student Activities, said university policies and their enforcement is the responsibility of the Tech community as a whole. ... After listening to audio recordings of Morell's speech, Gunn said he considered some of Morrell's statements to be "hate speech." He said Morrell could have been relocated or escorted off-campus if someone informed the office, which would have been enabled to assess the situation.

"At first, the ``South of the Border Party'' thrown by Santa Clara University students didn't strike freshman Nadine Rasch as offensive. It seemed a cool event with nachos, sombreros, mariachi music and salsa dancing. And this being a college party, some tequila and Mexican beer were to be expected if not approved by the select ``Jesuit university in Silicon Valley.''

But students came dressed as Latino janitors, gardeners, gangbangers and pregnant homegirls.

``I realized they're making fun of me, because my dad worked so hard so I could have these opportunities, and they're making fun of people for that,'' said Rasch, 18, a finance major from Guatemala, who did not attend the party. ``A lot of people have the idea that Mexicans or Latin Americans are all like that and that's wrong.''

Photographs taken at the private, off-campus party and splashed on Internet sites reveal a crude and narrow portrayal of Latino life. One student hammed it up before the camera with a stuffed balloon on her belly, under her blouse. Another posed for a close-up shot of her puckered mouth, thickly lipsticked and lined in black. One student wore a janitorial costume complete with the long rubber gloves commonly used to clean bathrooms.

Officially, President Paul Locatelli, administrators and faculty members condemned the party. Spokeswoman Deepa Arora said the school is investigating who organized and attended the party. While the college cannot ban off-campus parties, she said, Santa Clara has a code of conduct for all students, including those living off campus. Student leaders organized a protest march that was joined by 250 people. The campus has held meetings and plans a forum next week....

Meanwhile, a student writing in facebook.com said she attended the party and found it racially harmless."

Monday, March 05, 2007

Place-name Moans in Australia too

Remembering the fuss over "squaw" in American place-names, we read:

"Evidence of Queensland's racist past abound in the list of official place names, with nine waterways called Nigger Creek and other landmarks all bearing offensive names, such as Black Gin Creek and Niggers Bounce.

These names should be changed immediately because they were insulting and showed the nation in a poor light, according to a Queensland academic.

"Blackfellas" is what Australian Aborigines normally call themselves. Aboriginal activists call themselves "Kooris", "Murris", Booris" etc. (according to what part of Australia they come from) but that is not the everyday expression.

In the town where I was born, there is a place called "Murdering Point". I guess someone one day will find that "offensive" too. Complaining is all some people are good at. "Look how good I am" is their real message.

NIH Found Guilty of Discriminating Against Catholic Priest over Forced Multi-Faith Chaplaincy

We read:

"A Catholic chaplain who has been responsible for ministering to patients at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center has been reinstated after proving that he had been fired for his Catholic beliefs, attorneys from Kator, Parks & Weiser, PLLC, announced today. In a February 23 decision the Merit Systems Protection Board wrote "We concur in and adopt the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's finding that the agency discriminated against the appellant on the basis of religion and retaliation for equal employment opportunity activity."

In discussing the ruling, lead attorney Irving Kator said, "Here a government agency was punishing a Catholic priest for embracing his religion. It's truly an astonishing abuse of his first amendment rights, and raises questions about why a taxpayer-funded government organization would be dictating to a clergyman how he should be practicing his faith."

"Members of the religious Mennonite community in Mount Airy, near Moberly, are packing their bags and moving to Arkansas due to a new Missouri law that forces them to break their religious beliefs.

The new law requires a picture for every drivers license, without exception. In the past, Mennonites and other groups whose religious beliefs forbid picture taking were still allowed a license. On July 1, 2005, however, that changed.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

No Free Speech for Loony Ideas?

There is a young Chinese writer in New York who is undoubtedly full of hate. He wrote columns condemning whites and condemning Asians that are quite nutty. See here and here. They were so nutty that there were only minor protests about them. But then he did the unforgiveable! He wrote another nutty column about blacks. So we read the predictable:

""The 22-year-old author of a column titled Why I Hate Blacks in the regional newspaper AsianWeek has been dismissed, and the paper's editors said Wednesday that they suffered 'a serious lapse in editorial judgment' when they published his column"

See also here for more backgound. The paper's apology and lots of comments are here.

It seems to me that treating blacks as a class especially protected from any negative mention is clearly racist and that underlying that racism is the thoroughly racist view that the problems with blacks are so insoluble that not mentioning them is all you can do about them -- the "bigotry of low expectations", as President Bush has called it.

Doesn't anybody think it is odd that you can aim the most swingeing criticisms at conservatives and Christians but not at blacks? Those who criticize Christians and conservatives would appear to think that they can put the people concerned on the right path by their criticisms. Do the same people think that nothing you could say would improve the behavior of blacks? It would seem so. And they accuse conservatives of racism! The fact of the matter is that Leftists have ALWAYS made sweeping judgements of people on the basis of their race.

And banning loony ideas generally seems a bad move to me. I can think of two scientific ideas offhand -- continental drift and a bacterial cause for stomach ulcers -- that were once almost universally dismissed by all the good and the great as loony -- but which were eventually proved right-- the latter quite recently.

Is the American national anthem politically incorrect? From the 4th verse:Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

Mohammad

The truth can be offensive to some but it must be said

"HATE SPEECH" is free speech: The U.S. Supreme Court stated the general rule regarding protected speech in Texas v. Johnson (109 S.Ct. at 2544), when it held: "The government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable." Federal courts have consistently followed this. Said Virginia federal district judge Claude Hilton: "The First Amendment does not recognize exceptions for bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance or ideas or matters some may deem trivial, vulgar or profane."

Even some advocacy of violence is protected by the 1st Amendment. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously that speech advocating violent illegal actions to bring about social change is protected by the First Amendment "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

The double standard: Atheists can put up signs and billboards saying that Christianity is wrong and that is hunky dory. But if a Christian says that homosexuality is wrong, that is attacked as "hate speech"

One for the militant atheists to consider: "...it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" -- Thomas Jefferson

"I think no subject should be off-limits, and I regard the laws in many Continental countries criminalizing Holocaust denial as philosophically repugnant and practically useless – in that they confirm to Jew-haters that the Jews control everything (otherwise why aren’t we allowed to talk about it?)" -- Mark Steyn

Voltaire's most famous saying was actually a summary of Voltaire's thinking by one of his biographers rather than something Voltaire said himself. Nonetheless it is a wholly admirable sentiment: "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I am of a similar mind.

The traditional advice about derogatory speech: "Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you". Apparently people today are not as emotionally robust as their ancestors were.

Why conservatives should not respond to Leftist abuse: "Never wrestle with a pig, because you'll both just get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

The KKK were members of the DEMOCRATIC party. Google "Klanbake" if you doubt it

A phobia is an irrational fear, so the terms "Islamophobic" and "homophobic" embody a claim that the people so described are mentally ill. There is no evidence for either claim. Both terms are simply abuse masquerading as diagnoses and suggest that the person using them is engaged in propaganda rather than in any form of rational or objective discourse.

Leftists often pretend that any mention of race is "racist" -- unless they mention it, of course. But leaving such irrational propaganda aside, which statements really are racist? Can statements of fact about race be "racist"? Such statements are simply either true or false. The most sweeping possible definition of racism is that a racist statement is a statement that includes a negative value judgment of some race. Absent that, a statement is not racist, for all that Leftists might howl that it is. Facts cannot be racist so nor is the simple statement of them racist. Here is a statement that cannot therefore be racist by itself, though it could be false: "Blacks are on average much less intelligent than whites". If it is false and someone utters it, he could simply be mistaken or misinformed.

Categorization is a basic human survival skill so racism as the Left define it (i.e. any awareness of race) is in fact neither right nor wrong. It is simply human

Whatever your definition of racism, however, a statement that simply mentions race is not thereby racist -- though one would think otherwise from American Presidential election campaigns. Is a statement that mentions dogs, "doggist" or a statement that mentions cats, "cattist"?

If any mention of racial differences is racist then all Leftists are racist too -- as "affirmative action" is an explicit reference to racial differences

Was Abraham Lincoln a racist? "You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated." -- Spoken at the White House to a group of black community leaders, August 14th, 1862

Gimlet-eyed Leftist haters sometimes pounce on the word "white" as racist. Will the time come when we have to refer to the White House as the "Full spectrum of light" House?

The spirit of liberty is "the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." and "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." -- Judge Learned Hand

Mostly, a gaffe is just truth slipping out

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

It seems a pity that the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus is now little known. Remember, wrote the Stoic thinker, "that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgment that they are so. So when any one makes you angry, know that it is your own thought that has angered you. Wherefore make it your endeavour not to let your impressions carry you away."

"Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of reason?" -- English poet John Milton (1608-1674) in Areopagitica

Leftists can try to get you fired from your job over something that you said and that's not an attack on free speech. But if you just criticize something that they say, then that IS an attack on free speech

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) could have been speaking of much that goes on today when he said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

I despair of the ADL. Jews have enough problems already and yet in the ADL one has a prominent Jewish organization that does its best to make itself offensive to Christians. Their Leftism is more important to them than the welfare of Jewry -- which is the exact opposite of what they ostensibly stand for! Jewish cleverness seems to vanish when politics are involved. Fortunately, Christians are true to their saviour and have loving hearts. Jewish dissatisfaction with the myopia of the ADL is outlined here. Note that Foxy was too grand to reply to it.

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here